Even in the best districts, the effort to attain those all-important numbers eliminates deeper, richer education. Less stellar districts see their schools under a test-heavy siege, charged with getting results or being taken over. This drive also shapes the kind of material students see, relentlessly preparing them to reach higher for the Almighty Score while giving them little time to build essential traits such as critical thinking, creativity, initiative, and persistence.

Parents and educators alike decry this approach, but it’s seen as a necessary pill to swallow (or actually, to make students swallow) in order to achieve some longer term goal. The goal, policy-makers tell us, is greater success for individual students and greater success in global competitiveness.

Do they have proof that boosting individual as well as overall test scores lead to success on either count?

No.

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National test scores

We’re told that national test score rankings are vitally important indicators of a country’s future. To improve those rankings, core standards are imposed with more frequent assessments to determine student achievement (meaning more testing, more oversight, more teaching to the test).

But do higher test scores actually make a difference to a nation’s future?

A study by Christopher H. Tienken compared results from international mathematics and science tests from a fifty-year period to future economic competitiveness by those countries. Surely it showed that those countries with kids performing best on tests become high performing counties. Actually, no. Across all indicators there was minimal evidence that students’ high test scores produce value for their countries. Tienken concluded that higher student test scores were unrelated to any factors consistently predictive of a developed country’s growth and competitiveness.

In another such analysis, Keith Baker, a former researcher for the U.S. Department of Education, examined achievement studies across the world to see if they reflected the success of participating nations. Using numerous comparisons including national wealth, degree of democracy, economic growth, even happiness, Baker found no association between test scores and the success of advanced countries. Merely average test scores were correlated with successful nations while top test scores were not.

Baker explains, “In short, the higher a nation’s test score 40 years ago, the worse its economic performance…” He goes on to speculate whether testing [or forms of education emphasizing testing] itself may be damaging to a nation’s future.

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Individual test scores

What about individual success?

Educational reformer Alfie Kohn explains, “Research has repeatedly classified kids on the basis of whether they tend to be deep or shallow thinkers, and, for elementary, middle, and high school students, a positive correlation has been found between shallow thinking and how well kids do on standardized tests. So an individual student’s high test scores are not usually a good sign.”

Why do we push standardized tests it has been demonstrated that the results are counterproductive? We’ve been told this is the price children must pay in order to achieve success. This is profound evidence of societal shallow thinking because the evidence doesn’t stack up.

The criteria for academic success isn’t a direct line to lifetime success. Studies show that grades and test scores do not necessarily correlate to later accomplishment in such areas as social leadership, the arts, or sciences. Grades and tests only do a good job of forecasting how well youth will perform in future grades and tests. They are not good predictors of success in real life problems, relationships, or career advancement.

Some parents work to change the test-heavy system found in the majority of today’s public and private schools, in part by submitting compelling letters informing officials they will not permit their children to be tested, part of a larger opt-out movement.

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9 thoughts on “Better Test Scores Don’t Lead To Success”

I wholeheartedly agree – I wish we could stand on the rooftops and spread this message across the world! I’ll do my small part by spreading your post, but most of my friends have already been converted🙂

Thank you for posting this. Every year our school district puts pressure on me to get my children tested – preferably by a NYS certified teacher, since I am not one myself. It is my goal to resolve our differences amicably, but our conversations often leave me frustrated and defeated.

I’m curious about other home school educators – are you also experiencing pressure to test under a district’s narrow interpretation of the law?

Each state has different regulations. In our state (Ohio) we can either submit test scores (most people use IOWA basic skills tests) or a letter from a certified teacher saying the child is working up to his or her ability level (usually done by reviewing a portfolio). I know some other states are much stricter.

It’s funny because I just finished writing a post for this Saturday where I talked about why failure is a great option. When kids are driven to perfect test scores, they arn’t given the option to fail, yet if you talk to highly successful people, they will say that it took many, many failures until they could get to the level of sucess they are at now. In fact, when you think about it, failure is really an important path to true success – success that builds on something meaningful, not simply a number on a piece of paper.

I like testing for my own purposes, i.e. as a learning aid, for diagnostics, and whatnot. Just to refute Kohn a little….when a student knows material deeply they can answer questions about it quickly. So deep thinking is not, IMO and IME, unconnected from test-taking ability. If he can reject test scores then I feel comfortable rejecting his *research*! My kids will take and ace all the standardized tests – not for college, because they are not going (on my dime!) – but because I consider all the material to be fundamental. I’m continually befuddled by people who want to bash standardized tests because they don’t mean anything but still want to go to college – which doesn’t mean anything either!

Laura lives on a small farm with her family where she works as an editor while also slooowly writing one of the 17 books she alleges she'll actually finish.

She blogs optimistically on topics such as learning, creative living, mindfulness, and hope - with occasional drollery.

She is a regular contributor to such publications as Wired.com, Mothering.com, Culinate.com, Shareable.com, and many others.

She runs the highly informative Free Range Learning community page on Facebook and the entirely silly Subversive Cooking page on Facebook.
On occasion she tweets from the Twitter perch @earnestdrollery

Although she has deadlines to meet she tends to wander from the computer to preach hope, snort with laughter, cook subversively, ponder life’s deeper meaning, talk to chickens and cows, sing to bees, walk dogs, make messy art, concoct tinctures, watch foreign films, and hide in books.

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